Existing
by never-give-up-hope2
Summary: Death is easy, living is the hard part.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello. This is my first Hunger Games story in a while. It's not really got the hunger games in it so I suppose you could interperet it as anything. It's about about Katniss' and Peeta's daughter and how she feels. **

**This fic is written for one of my best friends - Emma L. She has been a great source of comfort for me and she is somebody that I trust with things that I can't tell many people. I know she tries to be a great listener and she is, one of the best! I also know how she felt recently. She's been there for me :) I couldn't think of any other way to show my appreciation so Emma, this is for you. Thank you, for everything. **

**This is also for my big brother Andrew, who I think about every day and am thankful that he doesn't live in a world like this.**

**P.S. The song is a Hebrew Lullaby called, 'Laila, Laila'. There was a few I could have used to for this but Laila Laila is my favourite. **

* * *

Sometimes she looks in the mirror and wonders how she came into being. She will push away her dark curls from her forehead and squint, as if she's trying to see herself in a different way. The conclusion she comes to is that she is nothing useful or memorable. She is just herself. It's not a massive accomplishment.

When she goes in the bathroom, Lily likes to wait until the bathroom mirror steams up and she can't make the blur out as herself. That way she can sort of pretend she doesn't exist, which is kind of how she wants it to be. Death is easier, it's living that's the hard part. Not being is easier, Existing is the hard part

* * *

It's sometimes impossible, being a good listener. Everyone takes her for granted. Everybody will chatter away to her about their problems and expect her to come up with a solution and, if she can't do that, a sympathy hug or something of the sort. Nobody seems to understand that Lily has her own problems too, that she is sick and tired of nobody being ready to listen to her.

And she wants her friends to come to her, she really does. Lily wants her friends to be able to come to her whenever they have a problem because she does genuinely feel sympathy for them and genuinely wants to help. So she can't see a way out. She can't see a way to tell somebody her problems when she wants people to come to her.

Nobody knows her problems. Nobody knows that her mother and father argue quietly a night, when the whole house should be sleeping softly. Nobody knows that sometimes her mother will have nightmares and will cry alone in her bed at night, a sound only Lily can hear.

Nobody knows and it terrifies her more than anything.

* * *

Sometimes, when the world is quiet, she will think about her life and why she is on this earth. Is there a purpose? Or is she just here as a matter of science. For so long, she has refused to let herself to get into the philosophy versus science debate. She chooses both. She chooses neither.

When Lily was younger, her mother used to sing her a song. It was a song made up long ago, long before their world even existed. It's not in a language that is recognisable but the words are soft and sweet. Her mother knows the English version and will tell her what the words mean but sometimes she gets it wrong. This isn't a language anybody speaks. And her mother can get things wrong, she isn't perfect.

Laila, Laila, haruach goveret (_Night, Night, the wind grows strong_

Laila, Laila, homa hatzameret,_,_ _Night, Night, the trees rustle_

Laila, Laila, kochav m'zamer, _Night, Night, a star is singing_

Numi, Numi, kabi et haner. _Go to sleep, blow out the candle)_

Laila, Laila, itsmi et enayich, _(Night, Night, close your eyes_

Laila, Laila, baderech elayich, _Night, Night on the way to you_

Laila, Laila, rachvu chamushim, _Night, Night, the rode armed in full gear,_

Numi, Numi, sh'losha parashim. _Go to sleep, three horsemen. )_

Laila, Laila, haruach goveret, (_Night, Night, the wind grows strong,_

Laila, Laila, homa hatzameret, _Night, Night, the trees rustle,_

Laila, Laila, rak at m'chaka, _Night, Night, only you wait_

Numi, Numi, haderech reka. _Go to sleep, the road lies empty.)_

Her mother doesn't sing anymore.

* * *

Lily has a messed up family. Torn apart by war, no person has been left untouched. Sometimes she thinks that it's easier to pretend it's never happened, easier to pretend it's something that came from a story or a childish thought. Never real. Because reality is dangerous.

So she pretends that she doesn't see the tear tracks on her little brother's face in the morning, and that she doesn't notice how puffy her father's eyes are and that she doesn't see the look in her grandmother's eye on a certain day of the year.

Because it's easier that way.

* * *

She once thought that being yourself was easier, because you don't have to pretend. She was wrong. Being youself is harder because you have to confront your fears, failures, lies and other unpleasant things. Being somebody else is easier, it's a clean slate. You can change the things you don't like about yourself and keep the things you do. It's easier.

Too bad she doesn't live in an easy world.


	2. Chapter 2

**So I'm the kind of person that will mark something complete and will then update it again. I had some more insparation for this little one-shot so if this chapter doesn't tie in with the last one, then think of it as a seperate one-shot. **

**Dedication: For Emma L - again! Since this is your fic. You're always there for me and you calm me down when I get too worried about things. I hope you enjoy this!**

**Please review! Even if you don't have an account, you can still review. Pretty Please :) **

* * *

_If you don't aspire to great things, you won't attain small things. _

_~Jewish Proverb~ _

She feels like she's floating. There's nothing below or above her except the air that swishes past her outstretched fingertips. It's nice, she decides. There is nothing weighing her down that can't be dismissed with her mind. Everything is calm and quiet. Then her mother shouts her name and Lily needs to remove herself from the bath, come up for air and the weightless feeling diminishes, as if it was never there at all.

Once upon a time, her mother told her a story. It was a story of a dangerous game and a boy and a girl that didn't know they loved each other. It's a tale of war and loss but eventually the dangerous game is banned and hurray, the boy and the girl love each other. There's something about it that Lily just can't believe; it's got too happy an ending. Even though they both lose something along the way, they find each other in the end. And it may be beautiful but something about that makes Lily feel uneasy because it's dangerous to rely on happy endings.

When she was small, Lily and her mother went to a beach that was an expanse of golden sand, framed by the big blue ocean. She ran about for hours and hours, careless of the tide that was slowly devouring the sand, as if it was savouring the taste. Eventually, the water was around her waist and slowly climbing upwards. Her mother came in and grabbed her with one hand and pulled her out of the water. Her mother shouted at her all the way home, not seeming to realise that she was three years old. Lily remembers that her mother had pulled her out so fast that the little yellow bucket she always had got left behind and swept away. The loss of that little yellow bucket has always seemed more prominent than the fact she could have died.

Lily has a friend called Rhia. Small, thin, graceful, softly-spoken, she is everything Lily is not and can only hope to be. Sometimes it makes her sad and yet sometimes it makes her happy, because Lily might not be happy exactly with who she is, she's content but she won't settle for it. That's not her nature. No, she will make something of herself and become great. She will fight for what she wants because she believes it's worth fighting for. Yet sometimes, late at night when the dark has free reign, she thinks that she will make no more of an impression on the world than a child's foot might make on a dusty floor.

That terrifies her.

When her brother was born, a temporary change occurred in her. Her brother has olive skin like their mother, and two teeth in his bottom gum that are crooked and white like pebbles and his eyes are the shade of grey that comes as a result from dipping a grey paintbrush in a water jar. It's translucent and she still thinks even now that she can see into his soul. His face was innocent as eggs; the symbol of new life and hope. Yet it all changed when he was watching some old news coverage of the war. It turns out that innocence can be easily broken - just like eggs.

Sometimes, when it's a warm summer night, Lily will creep out of her bedroom window and sit on the roof. The tiles are warm on her back and her dark hair fans around her head. If someone were to take a photograph, she would look like those models in those magazines hundreds of years ago. When beauty was not about how bright your hair was or how grotesque your face was. Except in her world, Lily will never be considered beautiful. Beautiful it to be artificial and to be injected with various things, beauty is not natural. Hardly anything is anymore.

Lily is given a school assignment to write about herself. It's at the end of the day when the air is so still and thick that even the flies move languidly. She can hear Rhia sigh beside her because writing about herself is not one of her favourite things. Rhia is a writer. She can come up with wonderful stories and words join together magically from the end of her pen, as if she's stringing a necklace together. Yet when tasked with talking or writing about herself, she fails, because Rhia has nothing special about herself. Lily feels the exact same.

That night, Lily sits down with a pen at her kitchen table and writes the first paragraph of her assignment. 'My name is Lily-Emma Everdeen Mellark. Everdeen for my mother, Mellark for my father, and Lily-Emma just for me.' It's not enough, but that's all she can seem to say about herself. If she breaks her first name down, Lily is of Latin origin, meaning innocent and Emma is of Old French and Old German origin meaning universal or whole. It's ironic, she thinks, because there is nothing innocent about her at all. And she is not whole, she always feels like there's something missing.

A few days later, she sees Rhia, lying under a tree, eyes closed. Going over to her, Lily sits beside her and toys with the daises at her finger tips. Eventually, Rhia speaks, just as softly as she always does:

"Lily, what are you searching for?"

And Lily doesn't even need to ask what on earth she's talking about.

"You always seem to be looking for something. I'm not quite sure what, but you seem lost. What is it that you want to find?" Rhia's voice is smooth, melodic. It takes Lily back to a time when her mother used to sing to her _Laila Laila _and Lily lets it carry her away.

"The truth," she says and she's suddenly, inadvertedly, saying more than she means to. "Except that sometimes the truth is poison, and it does nothing for you."

And Rhia, ever the patient and calm person says, "The truth isn't the poison, it's the cure. The truth may set you free."

Then Lily has no idea what they're talking about anymore, the morals of truth or is it something deeper? Something that they haven't found the meaning of yet and therefore don't quite understand?

"And sometimes it may not."


	3. Chapter 3

**So I've decided to turn this into a little story of different thoughts of Lily's. I'm leaving it marked as completed though. This is slightly shorter.**

**Dedication: Emma L - I think you've guessed this by now. Do you know what? You're just amazing! You akways say such nice things about my writing and this fic was written to cheer you up (because it's the only thing I'm good at) and I hope it has. Thank you so much!**

* * *

_The mountain air is clear as wine _  
_And the scent of pines _  
_Is carried on _  
_the breeze of twilight _  
_With the sound of bells._

_Avir harim zalul kayayin  
Ve-rei'ah oranim  
Nissa be-ru'ah ha'arbayim_

Im kol pa'amonim_****_

_~Jerusalem of Gold - Naomi Shemer ~ _

She's been sitting alone for a while, determining the morals of the universe. It's warm and it's midnight and she really shouldn't be on the roof but she is anyway, because staying in that bedroom of hers is simply unthinkable. In that bedroom, the difference between right and wrong becomes blurred until she can't even distinguish between the two. Outside is better.

Right and wrong. God, such an unhealthy topic and yet so appealing. Right and wrong. It's not even as if there's ever a right answer. Is stealing wrong? Yes. Ah - ah, let's take a look at the poor guy who stole to feed his family. See, then you think, well, it's still wrong but… and it goes on and on.

Once upon a time she thought that right and wrong were black and white. She thought that you could categorize different actions, thoughts and feelings into one or the other. Store them in a nice little labelled package so when you opened it, you'd know exactly what was inside. Yeah, what a joke that one turned out to be.

Rhia once told Lily that life was a play, and whether you acted it right or acted it as if it was nothing then that was up to you. She told her that everyone was an actor, they were always different than they seemed to be. And it's true. And Lily is just as guilty as everyone else.

Sometimes Lily feels that she's alone in this world. Yes she has her brother and her aunt and her cousins and her family basically. Except that once, someone told her that when you say someone's name when you love them, you say it different, as if it's safe inside your mouth. When her family speaks to her, it's usually with a sigh, as if she's disappointed them in a way she doesn't understand.

When Lily was small, she used to call her mother's best-friend 'auntie'. It was a name that was safe and represented smiles and sunshine and ice-cream in summer. When she was ten, Lily saw her Auntie Annie cry. Her cousin was running about on the sand and Lily turned to her Auntie Annie to say something when she saw that she was crying. All of a sudden then name 'auntie' no longer meant sunshine and smiles and ice-cream. It meant hurt and pain and so much disappointment. That day, Lily decided to start calling her Auntie Annie 'Aunt Annie'. Somehow, that name seems to fit her much better.

Sometimes she thinks Rhia looks like her mother's sister. The sister that died when she was not quite fourteen and that her mother chokes on her name every time she tries to mention it. Lily saw a picture of her aunt when she was five years old, then she saw a picture of Rhia when she was five years old. The similarities where startling. They both has long blonde hair - tied in two braids - and blue eyes with button noses and small, cheeky smiles. It scared her in a way she couldn't comprehend.

Late at night, her mother comes up to her room. She tells Lily, quietly, to turn around so her back is to her mother. Then she take a hairbrush and brushes Lily's thick, dark curls, that are long and fall to just above her waist. Then she takes to bands and braids Lily's hair into two separate braids so that it will curl in sleep. It's a soothing, rhythmic motion that makes Lily close her eyes and drift to the land where the good dreams are. Her mother finishes suddenly and almost immediately, Lily mourns for the loss of the soothing motion. Then her mother presses her lips to Lily's hair and whispers, "I love you."

Like three drops of blood falling on snow.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hi everybody. So this is the second last chapter and the last one should be up in the next few days. I'm really looking forward to the last chapter - I have so much stuff that I want to put in it. **

**For Emma - as always. I don't think you're like Lily anymore, at least not in this chapter. She seems far too depressing and nasty in this chapter to be you. Still, I hope you enjoy this anyhow :) See you soon!**

**For those of you who are wondering what this is about - it's to show that life after the Hunger Games trilogy isn't perfect. It's to show that just because the war solved some things, it didn't solve everything. **

**Please drop a review :)**

* * *

She wakes up to an empty house and tries so very hard not to care. It is, after all, only a house with nobody in it. There should be nothing more to it than that. She should not try to over-complicate it and she should not think that it means something.

It doesn't.

* * *

Lily stands in the meadow, arms outstretched and the sunshine touching her face but never really touching it. The grass feels spongy underneath her toes and she thinks that that's utterly ridiculous; grass shouldn't be spongy. It should be soft and feel inviting but instead it annoys her and itches her feet.

She lets herself fall back onto the grass. Her hands fall gracefully beside her and hit something, cold and hard and metallic. Lily jumps back up when she realizes it's an arrow. For a bow and arrow. She couldn't despise anything more than arrows. Then she wants to laugh because her mother's signature is a bow and arrow. There is no reason to be afraid.

_Oh, but there is every reason._

* * *

People talk to her and all she hears is disjointed words and fragments of sentences. And she's oh so very selfish because she doesn't want to listen but she can't quite help it. She's so sick of this world and it's stupid, pathetic complaints. Lily swears that if she hears someone complain about their friend not contacting them one more time then she'll scream because, really, she couldn't care less.

She has a friend too. A friend that doesn't live in district twelve and that she doesn't see that often. Does she complain? No, she doesn't. And she thinks that's part of the problem. Sometimes, she's too nice. She should tell people what she really thinks and then maybe they would stop thinking that she's the answer to all their problems. Because she isn't. You can't solve someone else's problems when you have some of your own.

* * *

Once, in school, they started learning about how, a long, long time ago, there used to be different religions. They learned about one… Lily can't remember what it was called… that was really interesting. They learned about something called the 'Vidui' which was the deathbed confessional prayer. There were all these words that sounded beautiful that meant horrible things.

"Maradnu," Lily whispers. She thinks it's her favourite. It means _we have rebelled _and she told her mother - The great Katniss Everdeen, who instigated the largest rebellion - that what she did was a sin and that she needed to confess it otherwise she would go to a place called hell. Her mother had looked at her odd and said, "If that rebellion had not happened, you would not be here today and we would be living in an awful world. Is that what you would prefer?" When Lily hadn't said anything, her mother had said, "though not," and had gone to take care of her little brother.

* * *

Things happen and some people are none the better for it. Some people turn out worse. The means does not always justify the end. Sometimes, the end makes the means seem cruel and unnecessary.

Lily thinks that maybe, life is just the means to an end.

She wakes up to an empty house and tries so very hard not to care. It is, after all, only a house with nobody in it.


	5. Chapter 5

**So this is the end of our journey together. I hope you've liked it. This is by far my favourite chapter! **

**Dedication: To Emma - as always. You are so supportive, and amazing and you always listen to me when I spout random crap and you should tell me to shut up! I love you so, so much and I hope you've enjoyed what I've written! See you later and we can have a good chat! 3 **

**This is also for a very, sepcial friend of mine. I know how hard it was when you're aunt died and I hoped you liked the name I snuck in there since I know you want to name your little girl that (if you have a little girl). Stay strong, motek, and I hope I see you soon :D**

* * *

_Our lives are made  
In these small hours  
These little wonders,  
These twists & turns of fate  
Time falls away,  
But these small hours,  
These small hours still remain_

_'Little Wonders' Rob Thomas _

When she was small, she once asked her father why her mother didn't like her. Her father had lifted her onto his lap and had said, "It's not that she doesn't like you. She loves you and likes you more than anything else in the whole world. It's just… that sometimes… she remembers things that she really doesn't want to remember and that can make her sad which makes her angry because she doesn't like being sad. Do you understand?"

Lily had thought about this for a little bit and had said, "A little. Why does she remember the things if she doesn't like them?"

Her father - ever the soft-hearted and kind man who never lied to her - said, "Your mother really doesn't have a choice. It just comes back to her suddenly. Just… be sensitive around her if you think she's upset. It won't last forever."

Except for once, her father - ever the sweetheart - was wrong.

One day, she goes to see Rhia who has just got back from a month long trip to the Capitol. She's missed her friend tremendously although people wouldn't think it. They've been growing apart lately and don't talk to each other as much as they used to. Lily supposes that it's a part of growing up, but that doesn't make it any easier or any pleasant.

Rhia's mom tells her to go to the park so she does and when she gets there she sees Rhia swinging idly on swing, lost in her own thoughts. So lost, in fact, that she doesn't notice Lily creeping up behind her and tapping her on the shoulder.

"Hey," Rhia says, even if it is kind of sad.

"Hi," Lily says cheerfully, "How're you?"

"I'm.. okay, you?" Rhia asks and Lily chooses to ignore the way she stumbled on the 'okay'. As if she's not okay at all but what she feels can't be put into words so she settled on the word that requires no explanation.

"I'm…" Lily says, "fine."

"What's wrong?" Rhia asks, immediately full of concern and love.

So Lily launches into this explanation about her mother and how things don't seem to be going right between them at all and how everyday she finds herself falling further and further and she's not sure she'll have the strength to get back up. Rhia is the only one she'll tell this too, because she's the only one who'll give a sympathetic ear. Ha, not this time.

"You don't get it, do you!" Rhia shouts, suddenly angry for a girl who is one of the most mellow people out there. "You have everything! You have your mom and you dad and your brother and your surrogate aunts and uncles! You live in the big house in Victor's Village and your mom and dad are famous and you are too! You have tons of people who would love to be your friend - you just don't give them a chance! You're smart and funny and one of the best damn friends ever! So stop, for God's sake, stop complaining about the people you'd miss if they were gone!"

And Lily is so shocked because nobody has ever dared speak to her like that. "What are you saying?"

Rhia's near hysterical now. "I'm saying kiss someone in the rain. Tell them you love them if you do. And if you truly love them and haven't said it yet then say it twice as much because you never know when they might be gone. Never say never to something you wish you had the strength to do - because you probably do have the strength to do it. Forgive people even of you wish you didn't have to. Don't with regrets!"

"Rhia-" Lily starts but Rhia just ignores her and keeps on going. Lily realizes that she's probably been needing to get this off her chest for a long time.

"Remember that life is temporary and everything can change in an instant. Nothing is permanent. Notice everything and memorize it all because one day memories will be all you have left! Don't stop just because someone hurt you because you need to remember that they're just one small piece in the great big puzzle that is your life. It just means that that piece doesn't fit and you need to pick up a new one. Remember that nothing stays forever and there's no guarantee that there will be a tomorrow. So you can dream as if you will live forever but you must live as if you will die today! Because sometimes, tomorrow is all that's left. Because sometimes words are all we have! Because we human beings are defined by nothing more permanent than emotions and the shifting grains of passing time!"

Then Rhia walks away because otherwise she'll start to cry and Rhia hates crying - Lily knows that and can see right through her angry façade.

It isn't until later that Lily remembers that Rhia's dad died when she was younger, and that her aunt had died of cancer in the month she was away.

Eventually, she grows up.

Lily completes high school and leaves with the highest grades possible in all her subjects. She says goodbye to her family on a rainy day in September and sets off for the Capitol University. Three years later and she comes out of those doors with a degree in psychology. Then she comes home to District Twelve and buys a house as far away from Victor's Village as possible.

Then Lily travels around the whole of Panem for a year, because she's always been too restless to settle down right away. Some time is spent longer in some places than others. Even though she would never admit it - she visit's the places that mean the most to her mom, because she does love her. So she spends longer in District Eleven and District Four.

It's back home after that and she gets a job in the new hospital that has taken four years to build. Quickly, Lily moves up the ranks and becomes the most senior psychologist in the hospital and has her own office and everything. There are pictures of her travels on the walls and a cactus sits lonesome on the windowsill.

She meets a man who makes her feel giddy and leaves the sheets on the other side of the bed pleasantly rumpled. His name is Adam and he is a policeman and he makes her feel so special. And he says her name right, as if it's safe inside his mouth. He moves in with her and picks his socks up off the floor and puts the toilet seat down and she thinks she's never loved anyone more.

Eventually, inevitably, she falls pregnant and there is no terror, only a indefinable joy. Her little girl is born on a sweltering day in May, seven months to the day after she got married. They call her Aviya and they treasure her because she is their whole world. Every night, just before Lily lays Avi down to sleep, she will hold her close, and kiss her head - which is soft and smells of new hope and bright tomorrows - and whisper, "You are my favourite thing, Aviya, my very, favourite thing." Aviya grows up and never questions why her mother does that. All she knows is that her mom loves her and that's enough.

Her brother grows up inevitably and marries a girl called Natalie who likes to dance and is one of te kindest people Lily has ever met. They have a little boy called Jonathon who has the same innocent-as-eggs face that her brother did when he was younger. Except Jonathon keeps his and never watched any war footage and never does anything that he's not supposed to. He's perfection.

Lily sees Rhia a handful of times. Rhia left school and became a doctor who specializes in Oncology and she quickly becomes the most famous doctor in the country. Her high succession rates mean people will gladly pay for her services but she keeps them free. Nobody except Lily knows the reason why she keeps her services free; it's because she wishes someone like that had been around when she was younger to save her aunt. The last time Lily sees her, Rhia's blonde hair is becoming white and she looks oh-so-tired. Rhia never marries and has no children.

Lily's father dies in his sixties. Lily sits by his bedside and holds his hand and says all the things she loves about him. When the end is near, she whispers, "The thing I loved about you was that you were yourself. And you never bent yourself to fit others." And with that her father lets go and she cries so hard she thinks it will never stop.

Her mother lives well into her eighties and there comes a day when Lily apologizes for being so horrible and her mother apologises for being so strict and harsh. It ends in tears but they are tears of forgiveness and the load she has been carrying for thirty odd years is suddenly lifted.

When Lily is old and everything has been said and done, she remembers little things. She remembers that when Aviya was small she would bump into things and have bruises that were as red as grapes and cry so hard that Lily wanted to cry as well. She remembers that Adam kissed her in a torrential downpour once and she loved him so much for it. She remembers that Rhia wrote stories that fit together like pearls on a string. She remembers that her mother and father and her brother were her family, and she really should have treated them like it.

She remembers and she is none the better for it.

"… we human beings are defined by nothing more than emotions and the shifting grains of passing time."

Rhia was right. Sometimes, tomorrow is all that's left.


End file.
